Of Orphans
by Yin Long Nocturne
Summary: Sakura, having watched her entire family brutally murdered by bandits on a reunion trip, seals up her heart. She hides herself away, underneath the mask of a perfectly normal, bubbly little girl. Hides the monster, the calculating beast born of desperation, and the horror of watching the ones she loved die while she could only look on in horror. Sakura centric, pre Academy.
1. Chapter 1

Sakura, having watched her entire family brutally murdered by bandits on a reunion trip, seals up her heart. She hides herself away, underneath the mask of a perfectly normal, bubbly little girl. She hides the monster, the calculating beast born of desperation, and the horror of watching the ones she loved die while she could only look on in horror.

The Sakura who is brought back by a border patrol is already hiding her scars.

As soon as she's released from the hospital, she asks to be accepted into the next Ninja Academy class session. With her all her relatives dead, it's the Civilian Council that makes the decision. To them the decision is easy, it takes far longer to complete a civilian education - it is only after graduation and the recognition of majority that Haruno Sakura can be removed from the already over-filled rolls of the Orphan's Fund. Her parents died without debt, so all their worldly effects and property were fully paid off, meaning that the Council wouldn't have to provide lodgings for her either. The Civilian Council forgets about the little pink haired girl, who stood before them with dead eyes and a rigid stance. Even if they had seen her again, they wouldn't have recognised the bright, bubbly fangirl.

She grew too good at hiding her true self too quickly.

* * *

Because there's no one at home to tell her not to, Sakura stays at the Konoha Civilian Library late into the evening most nights. The allotment she gets from the Orphan's Fund is standardised, so it can just cover buying three meals a day because it doesn't have to cover rent or new clothes and equipment. For the first few months she is aimless, picking up random stacks of books and heading to the back corner of the library with an exhaustive dictionary and a few scrolls for note taking. She's not truly paying attention to what's she's learning. But in the process her note taking becomes formidable, and her vocabulary and knowledge of obscure kanji grows exponentially. In those first few months, without even realising it, Sakura trains her mind into a fearsome weapon.

Then the Academy notice arrives, the next session is to start in one month, and Sakura realises that now she needs money for ninja supplies. "I'll have to start making my own food." She muses, looking over the list of supplies and the places to buy them that's included in the orientation packet for the civilian parents of prospective ninja. A few days later, and a few charmed shop assistants, that is confirmed. Apparently, the average Academy student burns through six sets of basic supplies during their time as a pre-genin. So, the next time she's at the library, she heads determinedly towards the far left corner. To the ceiling high stacks loaded up with books on cooking, gardening and preserving harvests. The Haruno main house has a sizeable garden out the back. Sakura hasn't touched it, apart from when she moved herself and a small amount stuff into one of the rooms near the back of the house. It is a ten tatami mat room that used to belong to an uncle or a cousin, someone she rarely saw. It hurts less than staying in the house she had grown up in; the empty spaces where her parents used to be are too painful to bare. "It's somewhere to start." She mutters, looking out at the weeds that are reaching up to knees now.

For the next two weeks she buys groceries and makes her own food, choking down burnt, undercooked and over-seasoned meals until she learns how to do it right. She learns how to make food that can last a week in a storage seal, stacked bento packed with calories and nutrients for eating after training sessions at the Academy. She learns how to make a filling breakfast, that she can carry and eat on the run if she needs to, while half asleep. Then, she incorporates a basic warm up into her morning routine as well: using pots as weights, stretching every time she reaches for something. Honing a sharp focus, controlling her every movement at any given moment throughout it all. Somehow, she don't think the Academy is going to be at all sympathetic to the unaccustomed body of a civilian girl.

Her whole body aches, just doing the little she does in the morning for the first week. But it gets better, and by the day before the Academy orientation Sakura can easily finish her morning routine, and then spend the rest of the day out in the backyard tending to the garden.

It had taken a whole week to clear the weeds and then plow the centre section of the backyard that she had marked out for planting. There was a section along the side fence Sakura was eyeing off for planting some fruit trees. One of the books she had read had been all about preserving fruit, and another had mentioned the benefits of eating just two pieces of fruit a day. To Sakura they seemed like an incredibly efficient way to get a small boost of energy. It seemed like a good idea, but vegetables came first, then maybe some chickens. A small flock would help keep the pests down, and the eggs would be very useful. If any of hens turned out to be broody, once the chicks matured she could slaughter them for meat as well. It would be a lot of work but Sakura hoped, that by doing all of that, it would leave enough money in the allowance she received from the Orphans Fund to buy meat, milk and rice, as well as the Academy supplies. And it wasn't like she would be regularly leaving the village any time in the next several years, the time investment should still be possible for a good while.

"At the very least, I've got enough to spare for the first round of supplies." Sakura mutters as she stands just inside the front door to the main house, preparing to put on the 'cheerful little girl' mask she always wears out in public. The pink haired girl who skips down the street isn't recognisable as the real Sakura, despite that their features are an uncanny match. This Sakura has bright eyes and a delighted smile, she's excited to finally get her things to become a ninja.

It's only a short walk to the marketplace near the house, but the ninja supply shops are all over by the Academy, a twenty minute walk to the west.

"Ne, ne! Shopkeeper-san! What should I get? I'm about to start at the Academy tomorrow." The shopkeeper smiles automatically at the enthusiasm in that voice, schooling his face back to neutral as he turns to help his newest customer. He doesn't notice even the slightest trace of the bloodlust Sakura keeps locked up tight inside her.

"Well, first things first. You'll want a training set of kunai and shuriken. They're just over here."

"Oh! Thank you, Oji-san!" Sakura bounces in place slightly before she heads over to the stacks of weapons, aware of the shopkeeper following her more sedately. "Those are shuriken," She says, pointing as the small metal stars, "And these are kunai." Her finger skips over to a ring handled knife. "Right?" She pouts up at the shopkeeper, and hides her smirk as he softens even further.

"Quite right, little miss."

"What about the others?" Sakura points to the long needles, and then flicks her wrist to encompass the rest of the display.

"Well, those ones you pointed at are called 'Senbon'. They're used in medical jutsu, and their use is often taught to Hunting and Tracking teams. They can also be dipped in poison."

"Oh…" Sakura keeps her voice soft and a little wistful. "I'd like to become a medic, maybe." She runs a finger down one of the long, thin needles. ' _These look like they'd be easy to hide, and even if someone found them, they look quite pitiful. Just perfect.'_

"Well." The shopkeeper hums thoughtfully, "Did your parents give any extra, past what they recommend on the Academy orientation pamphlet?

"Yep! And I added some from my piggy bank too." She peers up at him, and blinks faux innocently to hide the immediate and visceral twitch that comes from any mention of her family. _All gone, metal and red so thick it sticks in her throat, and the screaming..._

"Alright then, you should have enough to add a basic set of senbon to the kunai and shuriken you'll need for the Academy. Why don't you grab a set of each - you'll want 10 - and take them up to the front counter. One of the assistants will start bagging them up for you."

"Alright!" Sakura grins sweetly up at him, and for once Outer is matching her, ' _There's no point in getting the Academy sets, when Genin sets cost exactly the same, for three lots of 10 apiece.'_ "What should I look at after?"

"Well, next would be a basic medical kit - bandages and the like - and a ninja outfit with grab bags for your gear."

"Can you show me where they are?"She bites at her lower lip, and watches the shopkeeper soften even further.

"Of course, little miss, they're over on the far side of the shop. Why don't I get down the basics of an Academy med-kit, with a little extra, since I know you want to be a medic nin?"

"Really?" _Perfect._ "Thank you oji-san." With the shopkeeper successfully diverted, Sakura gathers up a set each of combat grade shuriken, senbon and kunai. Letting her Outer mask drop slightly, she walks calmly up the front desk, concealing her presence almost entirely.

The assistant, reading some magazine behind the desk, doesn't even notice the pile of weapons until a senbon at the top of the pile rolls off, clinking against the others. Sakura scoffs inwardly at the start of surprise she gives, but she just starts bundling them all up into cloth wrappings, marking the total down on a scrap of paper. _All according to plan._ When she pops back up at his side, with the Outer mask firmly in place, the shopkeeper has a small array of medical supplies laid out on a bench.

"Hello again, little miss."

"Hello again, oji-san." She says with a tinkling laugh, perfectly childlike without a trace of the sardonic edge that would be more _accurate_. "What are all these?"

"Well. We have basic bandages," He points to four rolls of white cloth, "Some antiseptic cream, and low grade painkillers," He points to a small purple tube and a small bottle of blue pills, "A general antidote, some soldier pills, and finally alcohol wipes." The antidote is in a clear glass bottle with an eyedropper attached to the lid, the soldier pills look the same as the painkillers but red. The alcohol wipes are individually wrapped in little sealed squares of pale purple. "They're coloured to make it easier to remember."

"Oh, so purple for disinfecting, blue for pain relief, red for energy, white for bandaging and clear for poison."

"Pretty much, medic nin use a bunch of different techniques to be able to differentiate what's in their grab bags easily. Some use colour, others the texture, or shape."

"Huh. Colours sounds good." Sakura muses. ' _I'll add something textured to the smooth bottles, so that I can identify them by touch, but this is a start.'_

"Glad you agree, little miss. Now, medic nin tend to use a segmented grab bag, one that has divided sections to allow for more attachment loops than the weapon holster ones used for kunai and the like." He sets a tan, roughly square looking cloth bag down, and then two black rounded ones next to it. "Senbon are often just poked straight into the weave of another weapons grab bag." He adds, when he sees her tilt her head.

"Okay." Sakura says with a shrug. ' _I was planning something similar anyway.'_ She looks back up at the shopkeeper and says, "Take this up to the counter, too?"

"Yes, little miss. Then you only have your training clothes, and you're done. I'm sure a smart miss like you can make her own choices on that matter. The clothing racks are up the front, come back to the counter when you're ready to pay for it all."

"Okay, oji-san."

Once the medical supplies have created another pile on the counter, next to the wrapped weapons, without the lowering of the Outer mask because the shopkeeper might actually be paying attention this time, Sakura heads towards the racks and piles of clothing at the front of the store. Flicking through the various combinations of ninja friendly clothes, Sakura stilled on a sleeveless tunic. It would fall to her knees, split up the sides to her hips, when she was a bit taller. For the moment, when she held it up to her front, the hem fell almost to her ankles, but being so large in the shoulder meant it would be easy to move in. It had fastenings all the way up one side, and it was reversible. Bright red and white on one side, sensible black and dark green on the other. ' _Outer can wear red, that's suitably boisterous. And the black and green side will suit ninja work quite well.'_ She soon picked out a second, similar tunic top that one a soft pink one side, and a pale grey on the other. Four sets of shorts in black and dark green, appropriately colour matched to her new tunics join the pile in her arms. With a smile on her face, Sakura skips back to the counter.

She thanks the shopkeeper for his help in a soft sweet tone as he folds and wraps the clothes, placing all of them in a small Academy-standard black rucksack. The final tally, once added to the cost of the weapons noted by the assistant, came in to just under what remained of Sakura's allowance for the week. Guess this is the start of my savings. She heads back to the main house with the solid weight of the rucksack beating a tattoo against her back the whole way.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning of her first day at the Academy, Sakura wakes with the dawn, it's a habit she'd started when she first got the orientation packet. Making breakfast, packing a bento for lunch, cleaning up after that, and her warm-up routine took a surprising amount of time. Especially once she added in tending to the garden that was slowly taking shape in the backyard. 'Thankfully, my warm up is a part of everything else. So I don't need another hour on top of what I already have.' Preparations for the day completed she sits on the back porch with a steaming cup of green tea and her breakfast. Breathing in the earthy smell of the freshly watered dirt, she smiles a small genuine smile, the barest twitches of her lips. She has half an hour before she has to put on her Outer mask and head to the Academy for the first day of school.

Her classmates at the Academy are perfectly normal little children, for the children of shinobi clans. Sakura soon choses Yamanaka Ino as her guide. She's a bright, bubbly girl, and the daughter of a T&I shinobi, as she'd bragged in class. A good midline between knowledgeable and slightly dark that anyone truly aware of what shinobi do is, and a normal, innocent, little girl. So Sakura sits by her at lunch times, adapts her mannerisms and quietly says that her mom makes her bento when her classmates chatter about their lunches during break.

No one here knows that all of Sakura's family is dead, and no one needs to. The small lie keeps the awkward questions and pitying stares at bay. It's not perfect though, modifying Outer for the Academy, and she ends up as the class target for the kunoichi's. The same way that the Uzumaki kid is for the boys, and just about everyone else it seems. The teasing is basic, and the pranks unimaginative, so Sakura is really bothered. It means no one tries to get invited over to her place. With Ino as her model, and the general disdain of the class, Sakura can happily exist within the assumptions her classmates have already boxed her up into.

It's a relief to get home at the end of the day. To be able to take off the bright red tunic and put on an old grey shirt and head into the garden. With Outer packed safely away in a back corner of her brain, Sakura can relax. Today she's going to set up the first of five raised garden plots. There's an abandoned training ground not far from the main house, still littered with debris. She's been bringing back rocks, and the kind of logs that ninja often used for Kawarimi, as their sensei had told them about in class when Inuzuka-kun had whined about wanting to learn jutsu already, for a while now.

"It looks like there's enough to create the walls now." Sakura says to the clear blue sky and heads down to the back of the garden, there's some thick clay not far down below the topsoil near the fence. With a small wheelbarrow and a spade she sets about hauling it up to where she's laid out the materials for the wall in a basic rectangle. It hard work, and her muscles are already protesting from their first taijutsu lesson, but she manages to get on the short walls done. It looks pretty funny, a chest high wall of bits of rock and timber with the beginnings of the two long sides poking out from the corners. She's covered in mud when she finishes, so she strips off her clothes and leaves them and her shoes on the back porch, leaving them to be picked up for washing after she has a bath.

She stays in the heated water for a long while, letting the heat drain the tension out of her tired body. It's already 6pm when she finally makes her way out of the steamy bathroom, leaving the door and window open to vent the steam out. After dressing in her pajamas, she picks up her dirty clothes, and the tunic she'd worn to the Academy that day and puts them in a bucket to soak. She'll wash them properly after she's eaten. When she falls into bed at 8 o'clock, the dinner dishes are drying in the rack, her clothes have been washed and are hanging out in the laundry.

She sleeps soundly, without dreams until she wakes the next morning as the pale light of predawn starts to filter into her room.

The rest of the week goes much like that first day. The sensei at the Academy introduce them to the various aspects of shinobi life, outlining the things they'll have to cover to pass the final exam. According to Iruka-sensei, it takes most students two or three years to make it that far. A few of the other students in Sakura class have already been there for a year, even two. The garden at the main house progresses steadily, by the time the Sunday at the end of Sakura's first Academy week comes, all of the five plots have walls. It will be the project of the of the next week to fill them with earth.

Iruka-sensei had mentioned in passing that higher level jutsu had elemental properties. Earth release, or Doton; Fire release, or Katon, which the Uchiha clan were known for; Water release, or Suiton; Wind release, or Fuuton, were the four basics. He'd also mentioned Lightning release, or Raiton; apparently a few Konoha nin had created specialist combat jutsu that were lighting based.

"A Doton jutsu would be pretty handy, but by the sounds of it an Academy student has a chakra pool that's about the size of an acorn." Sakura mutters with a sigh, surveying her handiwork. It's going to take most of the next week to fill in the plots, she's going to have to dig it out into the wheelbarrow and then cart it to the plots. "It's going to be hell doing it after taijutsu sessions. Well, it will level off the rest of the yard, if nothing else."

Sakura starts the next weekend in a huff. Apart from the taijutsu classes, the Academy classes are boring. Half of it she already knows from her time camped out in the Civilian library, and she hasn't even needed to go looking for things in the Academy floor of the Shinobi library. "It's pathetic." She grumble-snarls, stabbing the spade into the earth. There's only one more plot to fill, and then she can start on the planting. "Anyone who doesn't know the basic history of the village has been living under a rock all their life. And even if they were, there is such a thing as a library! I'm sure even Naruto can read."

The end of the third week brings a pop quiz, and the reshuffling of the classes. Funnily enough, Naruto, Kiba, and Shikamaru all manage to stay in their class. Several others who Sakura hasn't bothered to remember the names of get demoted to the other class. Mizuki-sensei, the teacher of the other class is there when they do the test, all of the year in the one classroom. There's something about him Sakura doesn't like, a twitch under her skin when his eyes pass over her. He doesn't feel dangerous, in the way all shinobi do, but unstable. He feels more like the bandits that killed her family did. She's glad he's not her full time sensei.


	3. Chapter 3

The first seeds Sakura gets are cabbage seeds and spring onion seeds. Almost by accident, she ends up with daikon too - she forgets about one for a week and it starts to sprout. She doesn't know how well it's going to work, but she sows the first two beds and waters them in, then she plants the pieces of daikon with roots already starting to grow. Her daily routine now includes carefully watering the plots, just enough to make sure the soil isn't dry. When the rains come, she won't need to as much, but while the seedlings are establishing, she's a little nervous. According to the books it will take a few weeks for the seedlings to grow large enough for thinning, when they get to finger height. Then, according to one book, she can use the sprouts in her cooking, while the rest are left to grow large. Sakura can't wait until then, but at least the next few weeks in the Academy seem like they'll be at least a little interesting. Iruka-sensei said he was going to start them on throwing shuriken.

After the second taijutsu lesson that includes shuriken throwing, Sakura resolves to create a proper training area in the main house backyard. It couldn't be too difficult to set up some target posts for shuriken practice. The abandoned training ground had a few, and she can always scavenge some logs if she needs to. Plans set, Sakura starts venturing out to the abandoned training ground after she's dropped off her things and reversed her tunic at the end of the Academy session. When she gets back to the main house every afternoon, she twists her hair up tight against the back of her skull, securing it with a blunted senbon. Her hair reaches her shoulders now, a match for Ino, although Sakura has decided to forego a fringe. It keeps it out of her way, and Sakura figures she gets enough practice maneuvering with loose hair during the Academy training sessions.

The Sakura fossicking through the old training ground in the old north west district would be unrecognisable to any that saw her at the Academy, even with the distinctive 'cherry blossom' pink hair. She's glad for it, it isn't often that she sees shinobi on her trips to the old training ground, but she does occasionally. On this particularly trip, she find a ninja lounging on one of the fallen trees. It's one of the ones too big for Sakura to handle, and with no tools to break it down further, she written it off her list of parts to scavenge. It's still a bit of a shock, to have company here. She stills, waiting. Watching the jounin, she presumes given the flack jacket, who has a senbon in his mouth, the point of it dancing slightly in the air like he's fiddling it with his tongue. His eyes flick to her briefly, although it's pretty obvious he's known she was standing there from the beginning. When the jounin doesn't make any move from his spot, Sakura shrugs internally and heads around to one of the still intact training posts, making sure to keep him in her sight lines.

She's not exactly sure how to get the post out of the ground, it would have to be sturdy to survive even a genin level ninja. "Well, this is what today is for." She mumbles under her breath, crouching down beside the post.

She puts her hands on the post near the base and gives it a small tug. Nothing, but Sakura was expecting that. She moves on to the earth at the base of the post, pushing at the earth with her hands. It's stiff, but no more so than the clay she'd been digging up near the back fence of the main house. Sakura takes the small shovel out from her knapsack and starts on digging the pole out of the ground. She fully expects it won't be that simple, but if she can actually see what's there it'll be easier to deal with tomorrow.

* * *

When Genma settled onto one of the many fallen logs in one of the abandoned northwest training grounds, he wasn't expecting company. It was 'abandoned' for a reason, most nin took the east side training grounds these days. Those were better equipped, and closer to both the hospital and the standby stations. He definitely wasn't expecting that his company would be a small slip of a girl with pale pink hair, 'Pink? Really?' dressed in a slightly large tunic with senbon badly threaded into the hems and a black knapsack. Genma wasn't the best at chakra sensing, but the kid had enough to be a genin, maybe.

The kid moved off, further into the training ground, when Genma made no moves to leave or do anything but stay in his sprawl against the fallen tree. 'Well, it'll be some entertainment, I guess.' He thought as he watched the kid tug futilely at one of the less battered training posts. 'You're not going to get anywhere with that, kid.'

Genma sat and watched the kid shovel away at the earth around the post for the next hour. By the end, there was a small mountain of dirt off to either side, and the kid was leaning into the small hole. There was some fumbling, and a muffled curse, then the kid picked the shovel up and kept going. Another hour of digging and when the kid shoves against the top of the post it shifts slightly in place.

The kid retreats a bit away from the post, still careful to not turn her back, and that's when Genma thinks she's given in. But the kid just pulls a bento out of the black knapsack, cleaning the dirt off her hands with a small towel and eating quickly washing the food down with something from a slightly steaming thermos. Then, after a quick stretch and a basic kata he recognises from the Academy taijutsu style, the kid goes back to the post. 'If nothing else, kid, you've got enough determination to move a mountain. And you might actually be doing that right now. Those training posts don't budge easy, not without unlocking the chakra key that keeps them in place.'

Another hour goes by of the kid trying various strategies to get the post out of the ground, even going so far as set explosive tags at the bottom of the hole, now almost as tall as the kid was. Genma sighed, and then made a show of getting up, weaving his senbon back into his sleeve and then walking, slowly, over to the kid.

* * *

"You're not going to get very far on that, if you can't control your chakra enough to unlock the seal keeping it in place." Sakura hides her flinch as much as she can, she'd barely registered him shifting before he was standing beside her. Slowly, inchingly, she turns to look at the jounin who, up until now, had been safely sprawled out on a fallen log. Showing absolutely no signs of any want to do anything but lie around for a while, maybe watch the puffy clouds passing slowly overhead.

"What?"

"The training post. They're chakra locked, to a specific key. It helps stop them from getting ripped out during spars. Doesn't stop them from being destroyed, but they'll stay in place until they are."

"Chakra locked?"

"Yeah, you know, the stuff you use to make jutsu." The jounin has a sort of scrunched look about him, like he doesn't really know how to explain it.

"I know about chakra, I'm not an idiot." Sakura says, soft but strong. "What's chakra locking?"

"Well." The jounin sighs, flopping down to the ground beside Sakura, "You know seals, right? Smoke bombs, and storage scrolls and stuff. Well it's a bit like that, you set a pattern." He uses a senbon to scratch out a design into the soft earth she'd dug out from around the post. "Then you add chakra."

"Pattern, then chakra?" She knows she sounds dubious, but really.

"A bit simplistic, but that's the jist of it. The seal on the training posts is one that locks them in place until a pattern of chakra bursts in channelled into the seal. That's usually enough to make sure they stay in place, the baby ninja who get gung ho and want to use the training posts as weapons can't channel their chakra to that level of finesse, and us veterans have more creativity than that." The jounin looks smug at the last bit.

"Right." Sakura says slowly, turning back to stare at the post. "Chakra bursts." She puts her hand on the side of the post, pressing it into the wood for a moment before pulling back. 'Looks like I have research to do, that post isn't shifting, and even if the jounin's lying about chakra locking, sealing sounds interesting.'

"What did you want it for anyway? He gestures to the post, cocking an eyebrow at her.

"Training." She says, voice dry as bone, the 'duh' is left unspoken but not unheard.

"Mm, don't your sensei let you run around another training ground enough?"

"I need one for the house. There isn't enough time during taijutsu, weapons and sparring lessons." There's barely a flicker of reaction, but something tells Sakura the jounin wasn't exactly expecting that revelation. She watches with interest as he wipes off the senbon and threads it expertly into the sleeve of his shirt. It fits neatly into the weave of the fabric, showing barely a flash of silver in the navy and it shows no signs of slipping.

"Backyard training ground, huh?" The jounin pulls a fresh senbon out his weapons pouch and sticks the end in his mouth after flicking the tip against his thumb. She must make some kind of noise then, because he looks at her and grins. "I colour my poisons by toxicity, they leave a residue on skin, so I know when I shouldn't stick 'em in my mouth."

'Like the way the things in my med pack are coloured and textured so I can tell them apart.' Sakura nods faintly, mind already occupied with the idea of putting poisons on her senbon. 'Muscle relaxant would be a good place to start, useful on allies as well as enemies.'

"Make sure you mix the antidotes first." The jounin muttered, as he laid a hand on the top of the training post.

"Hm?" Sakura looked up at him sharply.

"Antidotes, or have a person to cart you to an iryo nin if you collapse."

"Ah." 'Was I really that obvious? Or is this guy just good at reading people.'

"I'm good at reading people. And you have senbon weaved rather clumsily into your tunic. It's not much of a stretch." The tip of the senbon bobbed in the hair and as the jounin lifted his hand up, bringing the post with it. "So where am I carting this to?"

"I can do it myself." Sakura ground out, glaring up at the jounin.

"Testy, testy. You're gonna want it locked back in, won't you?" He waved a hand loosely in the light, as if to wave away her obstinance.

"... Fine." She quickly slipped her things back into the black knapsack, securing it on her back even as she turned and headed for the main house. The jounin would keep up.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I've done minor edits on the previous chapters, nothing plot wise just word choice and paragraph structure.

* * *

The mornings have started to come with frost. White clouds of breath billow from her mouth with every exhale that looking like smoke trials, and the prickling of gooseflesh up her arms when she goes out in only her sleeveless tunic. It's after a week of compulsively rubbing her hands up and down her arms multiple times a day that Sakura gives in, and goes back to the shop where she bought her ninja gear. It's a simple matter to find long sleeved shirts with high collars and longer pants in black and dark green. She charms the shopkeeper again, and picks up a few sealing scrolls while she's at it. Her efforts in the garden are starting to sprout, she still has to buy vegetables from the market but it's starting to feel like her efforts are paying off. So she splurges a little on the scrolls, gets a food grade one, as well as one for weapons.

She's sees the jounin on occasion, senbon alway stuck between his teeth or flipping through his fingers. Sees him running on the rooftops, sprawled out on the log in the abandoned training ground, in the Hokage Tower the day her Academy class is taken on a tour. The first time she goes outside to start her morning training and finds him poking at the small cabbages starting to grow in one of the plots, she freezes. Then she throws a senbon at his head. He catches it without even looking up, and starts to flip it through his fingers.

"What are these?" He pokes at a baby cabbage again, with such a look of curiosity on his face.

"Cabbages." She answers dryly.

"Cabbages?" His eyebrows shoot up under his bandana and he pokes at it again.

"Yes, and if you could stop poking at it, I can pick it for lunch." It's one of the more mature of the lot, and Sakura thinks it's about time to test the first of her gardening efforts.

"Lunch?"

"Are you going to keep repeating everything I say?" It's her turn to raise an eyebrow, "Yes. Lunch, you know that thing you eat in the middle of the day, when your stomach starts to growl at you."

"I know what lunch is!" He's still poking at the cabbage.

Sakura sighs and moves forward, reaching around his curious fingers to cut the base of the cabbage near the earth, adding it to the small head of broccoli and a the bunch of spring onions in the shallow basket she'd set down on the wall of the plot. "Well, come on then." She says as she heads back towards the house. "And take you shoes off!" She's spent too many long evenings in the garden that have left her covered in mud from head to toe to tolerate anyone who thinks they can muddy her floors. 'It's far too much work to clean it up, when you can just leave your shoes and stuff outside.' By the mumblings she hears behind her, the jounin is following her orders, even if his feet make no sound on the floorboards she knows he's only a few paces behind her.

She sets the vegetables in the sink and runs the water while she puts the basket back in its place by the door. After rinsing them thoroughly, Sakura sets them on a large wooden board and pick out two a knives: one that's about the size of a kunai, the other more like a tanto but with a squared end instead of a point. With well practiced motions she separates the outer leaves of the cabbage and sets them aside; shreds the inner core and discards the woody stem; separates the broccoli down into florets and cuts the two inches of stem closest to the head into comparably sized pieces; the springs onions she cuts the root base off and slices on the diagonal. As each task is done, the prepared vegetables are tossed into small bowls that line the back of the bench. Painfully aware of the jounin standing somewhat stiffly against the wall, Sakura washes and dries the knives, setting them back into a rack. The board is wiped down with a damp cloth, and then she retrieves the things she needs for the next steps.

Ginger, ground pork, a small chilli, soy sauce and a small box of panko soon share bench space with a large bowl, a semi circular knife and a pot of water set over the heat. The ginger and chilli are swiftly chopped down so finely they're almost a paste, and join the pork and panko crumbs along with a generous slurp of soy in the bowl. With sure hands Sakura kneads the ingredients until they combine and smooth out. By now the water in pot is bubbling gently, and after rinsing the raw meat of her hands, Sakura quickly blanches the broccoli and cabbage, barely letting the latter touch the water before scooping it out. The broccoli she sets aside, but the cabbage leaves she lays out on the board and, while they are still hot and pliable, fills them with the meat and rolls them into little parcels.

Soon the board is filled with little, pale green, cylinders and Sakura is rinsing her hands again. The parcels are laid into a steam basket which is them placed atop the pot of boiling water. A glance at the clock confirms the time, and then she's putting the dishes in the sink and running it full of soap and hot water. It takes barely ten minutes to wash the board, knife and bowl, and she leaves them in the draining rack to dry off. Taking the lid off the steamer, she pokes the tip of senbon into one of the parcels and touches her finger to the tip. 'Burning hot, they should be cooked then.' The parcels are laid out on a plate, the cabbage is retrieved and drizzled with a sesame dressing she'd made earlier that week. Cooking complete, she turns to the jounin.

"Take those," she nods to the two bowls, and picks up the plate in one hand and two small plates and chopsticks with the other. "The table's through this way." She walks off again, relatively confident he'll follow her out of curiosity if nothing else.

That's how she ends up eating lunch with a jounin. A jounin who is failing to hide his utter ignorance of what food actually is and how to make it.

* * *

Genma didn't know this was a thing. Okay, he knew that food came from places, like plants and shit. 'But this is, this has to be some kind of clan secret jutsu.' He thinks as he stuffs his face with food the kid had made. "I didn't know food could taste like this." He muttered.

"What have you been eating?" There was mild alarm in the kid's voice.

"Um… Ration packs, mostly." Genma mumbled into his bowl, feeling strangely sheepish.

The silence was biting. "Ration packs. Mostly." There was so much skepticism loaded into that one word it was almost a tangible thing. "Never actual food? You are going to die an early and painful death, jounin-san."

"I haven't died yet." Genma grumbled, "And it's Genma, Shiranui Genma."

"Then, Shiranui-san, it's a wonder you haven't been hospitalised with malnutrition yet. Rat packs aren't meant to be your only source of food."

Genma cleared his throat, feeling sheepish again, and stuffed another mouthful of cabbage in as he avoided all eye contact with the maybe genin lecturing him about his eating habits of all things. 'Doesn't she know I'm a toku-jou, I could kill her with my little finger, blindfolded.' He whined in his head, 'Am I really that un-intimidating? Where did I go wrong?' He lamented, refilling his bowl for the third time.

The kid sighed, and refilled her plate before pushing the serving platters toward Genma. "Go on." She said, "And my name's Sakura. Haruno Sakura."

"Nice to meetcha, Haruno-chan."

"Don't-" Sakura chokes, "Don't call me 'Haruno'. Sakura is fine."

"Sakura-kun, then?" The jounin, Shiranui Genma, tilts his head at her, and there is a light of awareness in his eyes.

"That's fine." She mumbles. This house in unfamiliar enough that she can pretend, but every time the teachers at the Academy call out 'Haruno-kun?' or one of her classmates, the curl of ice in her stomach grows. Hearing that name, in this house, in the only place she has where she can leave those reminders behind, even if only a little? 'No.'


End file.
